For A Time
by NotAllWhoWander
Summary: Picking up on the Fili/Tauriel relationship. Starts where the Desolation of Smaug leaves off.


Certainly he didn't recommend dying a horrible death via a Morgul poisoned arrow, but there were brief moments sandwiched between the fiery bursts of pain and the overwhelming nausea that could be considered…almost..nice. And while they absolutely did not make this particular brand of death one of his top ten choicest ways to enter the shadowy veil of the afterlife, Kili supposed there were worse ways to join his noble ancestors than stretched out on this hard table, with a bag of walnuts under ones head. In fact, in the warm haze of semi consciousness, he remembered lovely things. His mother's moose tarts, the smell of a kiln as it heated, and the silken beard of his first love -she had kept it in such lovely braids. Of course he had stroked many a luxurious beard (amongst other things) since, as there was nothing quite like the feel of a lusty woman's chin hair pressed against your own.

Bless the kings of stone and iron.

"Kili! Kili!" Gods his brother's voice was loud -too loud, and it was making it very hard to die in peace. "Stay with us Kili. We are brewing you a tea. It will make you feel better." Right, tea. That should combat the ultimate evil running through his very bones and tearing apart his innards with its claws.

"Do…do you have any healing biscuits to go with that?" He managed through chattering teeth. Now normally his quips drew a smile out of his brother, but, as it was, the situation must be far too dire for that, because all he got was a watery frown from Fili. He supposed they were all out of biscuits anyway.

Kili mustered enough of his waning strength to pat the side of his brother's head gently. Poor Fili, he would take this death business very hard. Kili sighed, trying to form his thoughts into something more encouraging or insightful. One's last words shouldn't be a request for sweets he supposed, but the thrumming in his skull was making it very difficult to appear wise. "Fili, I want you to" he began.

"Yes brother?"

"..should anything happen…tell mother I am very sorry for breaking my word." Kili's eye's stung, though he managed to blink back the wetness.

Pledges to mothers had a way of making the hardest of warriors weepy, but he would not put that sorrow on his brother.

"You'll tell her anything you have to say yourself. Drink this." Fili pushed the lip of a steaming cup against Kili's chapped lips. The sour liquid drained slowly into his throat, warming his cold chest. "There, that's much better. Don't you feel better Kili?"

He hadn't the heart to tell him that not only was that the singularly foulest thing he had ever put in his mouth, but he would never feel better again. Morgul poison, he now knew, wrapped itself around your insides and fed on your blood. It sucked on the soul and thrived on pain. Instead he nodded weakly. There were things that needed pondering, and he grew increasingly tired.

Was it the moose tarts or the elk tarts he liked more? It seemed a very long time since he'd sat at his mother's table…and …as for women, well that had recently become a bit of a scratch hadn't it?

"Do you think she could have loved me?"

"Mother? I'm certain of it, though less than me of course."

"Tauriel"

"The flame haired she elf you were chatting up for nigh unto two months?" His brother's reply held the barest hint of familiar humor. "You were the single source of entertainment in those foul cells, we ALL have pondered that very question." He grabbed Kili's hand in his own, and took a seat by his side. "You must be feeling better if your mind travels there."

He brushed his younger siblings matted hair off his sweaty brow. He paused his ministrations after a moment and sighed. "But to answer your query, we do. It would be very difficult for that poor woman not to love you, eh?" Fili smiled, "though surely if she could see you now, she would rethink her grievous mistake."

"I" Kili paused, letting a wave of pain pass, "am very charming."

"Aye, you whiskerless mewling, you are." Fili gently cuffed his brother's ear. "Though what you see in that smooth face and those gangly limbs, I do not reckon."

"She walks in stars.." he began.

"And that is the fever talking." Fili lay a cool cloth over Kili's brow. "Rest, and we will speak of the mysteries of womenfolk when you wake."

Agreeable to the suggestion, Kili lay back and closed his tired eyes once more. Surely a few moments of rest would serve him well and afterward he could ask Fili about what exactly were in those delicious pies, and hopefully come to an understanding of all womankind.

.


End file.
